STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
H.R. 1937 – National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2015
(Rep. Amodei, R-NV, and 48 cosponsors)
The
Administration strongly opposes H.R. 1937, which would undermine
existing environmental safeguards for, at a minimum, almost all types of
hardrock mines on Federal lands. Specifically, H.R. 1937 would
undermine sound Federal decision-making by eliminating appropriate
reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act if certain
conditions are met, circumventing public involvement in mining
proposals, and bypassing the formulation of alternatives to proposals,
among other things. The Administration also opposes the legislation's
severe restrictions on judicial review. Although the legislation
purports to limit litigation, its extremely short statute of limitations
and vague constraints on the scope of prospective relief that a court
may issue are likely to have the opposite effect.
The
Administration strongly supports the development of rare earth elements
and other critical minerals, but rejects the notion that their
development is incompatible with existing safeguards regarding uses of
public lands, environmental protection, and public involvement in agency
decision-making.
H.R. 692 – Default Prevention Act
(Rep. McClintock, R-CA, and 112 cosponsors)
The
Administration strongly opposes H.R. 692, which would result in the
Congress not paying obligations it has already agreed to, thereby
putting the Nation into default on its obligations. Any legislative
proposal to prioritize certain payments over others is default by
another name and would not protect the full faith and credit of the
United States government or avoid the negative impact of default on
American jobs and businesses. Such an approach would be the equivalent
of a family saying that it will choose to pay its mortgage, but not its
car payment, credit card, or student loans, and expecting that its
creditworthiness will not suffer. It would cause the Nation to default
on payments for Medicare, veterans, national security, and many other
key priorities. Making some payments while not making others would be
unacceptably risky and unfair to the American people.
Under
the President’s leadership, annual deficits have come down by roughly
three-quarters as a share of the economy since 2009, the fastest period
of sustained deficit reduction since just after World War II. In Fiscal
Year 2015, the deficit fell by $44 billion to just 2.5 percent of GDP—a
level significantly below the roughly 3-percent level needed to
stabilize our debt-to-GDP ratio. The President has put forward a
balanced approach to deficit reduction in his FY 2016 Budget that would
continue to stabilize the Nation's debt as a share of the economy,
without shortchanging the kinds of investments that are critical to
long-term economic growth.
The
President continues to work to find areas of compromise and common
ground with both parties in the Congress. But the President has been
clear that he will not negotiate about whether to uphold the full faith
and credit of the United States. The Congress must pay the bills it has
already incurred; failure to do so would cause the Nation to default on
our obligations for the first time in history.
The
President will not tolerate political gamesmanship, which caused the
Nation’s credit rating to be downgraded in 2011 and proved harmful to
both the United States and global economy. For this reason, if the
President is presented with legislation that would result in the
Congress choosing to default on our obligations and imperil the full
faith and credit of the United States, he would veto it.
H.R. 10 – Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Reauthorization Act
(Rep. Boehner, R-Ohio, and 14 cosponsors)
H.R.
10 would reauthorize the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act,
which provides Federal support for improving traditional public schools
in the District of Columbia (D.C.), expanding and improving high-quality
D.C. public charter schools, and offering private school vouchers to a
limited number of students. The Administration continues to strongly
oppose the private school vouchers program within this legislation,
known as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
Rigorous
evaluation over several years demonstrates that D.C. vouchers have not
yielded statistically significant improvements in student achievement by
scholarship recipients compared to other students not receiving
vouchers. In addition, H.R. 10 would extend this voucher program to a
new population of students previously attending private schools.
Instead of using Federal resources to support a handful of students in
private schools, the Federal Government should focus its attention and
available resources on improving the quality of public schools for all
students.
Source: The Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget
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